New Mailer for the Fall

I try to send out cards about every 3 or 4 months. It may be overkill but in the world of Advertising it usually takes 7 attempts to get noticed.   If we keep putting our names in front of the Art Directors with quality work, it will pay off.

This is the postcard I am sending out this month. I wanted to wait a bit so that the editors would be returning from vacations.  My theory on this one was to present a closeup image with some added interest on the back, and make sure that even without glasses an editor would see my name and website.   I have a space on the back of the card for my agent's email and phone which I put in before the cards were printed.

I have always used Overnight Prints, but may try VistaPrints at some point. Overnight gives me really good quality on a large card and this last order they gave me 50 extra cards.  

And then there is MOO.com  They will print 60 cards with a different image on the front of every card if you like.  The price is high for 60 cards, but you can also make as few as 20 cards all with different images for $20.00.  The postcards are regulation size suited for US postal conditions, but seem a bit smaller than the smallest VistaPrint or Overnight Prints cards.

They also make sticker books with as many as 90 different images.  (Yes, they can also be just the same image too.)  They are based in London so you need to use Pay Pal but credit cards do work.  I recently ordered a book of 90 stickers for our little grandson Trevor.  Some have his face; some have my illos, but all were beautifully printed! And they came in a cute little booklet.  Moo has lots of goodies, you may want to take a look.  They love to Print!

5.5" x 8.5" Postcard Mailer

I'm getting ready to do a large mailing to art directors and editors at publishing houses I'd like to work for, and I've created a few different options for the front of the 5.5" x 8.5" postcard. The back of the card shows a couple characters in multiple poses that would be interior black & white illustrations for a middle grade novel. Front 3 shows a sample middle grade cover using the same characters that I used on the back. I'll send Front 3 to those who don't work on picture books, but stictly publish chapter books/middle grade/YA.

My dilemma is what to send to those who publish both picture books and middle grade. Front 1 and Front 2 show my Peter Pan illustration and an illustration that will be in Highlights in the December issue. The Highlights illustration would work fine for picture book editors, and the back of the card shows middle grade illustrations, so both picture books and middle grade would be covered in one card. The other option is to send Front 3 to everyone who works on middle regardless of whether or not they do picture books too and just target middle grade right now. What do you think? Show both picture book and middle grade samples on one card or just focus on middle grade for this mailer?

Sail Away

I posted this on IF today.... and wanted to share it here, in case you don't visit Illustration Friday. After working for hours and hours on something like this I like to save various stages. So I created a Digital File Cabinet and put most of my illustrations there including some of the steps and sketches that lead up to the finish. That way if I want to revisit or redo or reuse an image I know where to find it.

Prints Available!!!

©Kathleen Rietz
©Kathleen Rietz
Great News! 8"X10" prints are now available for "Sea Princess" and "Happy Halloween". All prints are signed and printed on 5 star archival quality matte paper with archival inks, shipped in a protective sleeve. For a limited time, they are available for $20 USD each. More designs will be made available in the future, but for now I am debuting my 2 most popular illustrations.

Mailers

Kate asked me to post my mailers for everyone to see. Thanks Kate that was such a great idea! Funny I should have thought of it myself, but luckily you thought of it for me. It's always so interesting to me to see other artist mailers. . .

You can click on the images to see a larger view.

Vista Print

Just thought I'd share a bit. A while back our Kate recommended Vista Print for printing mailers. Upon her recommendation I ordered some postcards and they came on time and had good color. I usually use a black border on my mailers and at times with other printers I have used they have come out a bit gray. But with Vista it was great.

I also got a great suggestion from Ginger a while ago. She said she always boots the saturation on her printing. . .I tried that this time. I boosted the saturation up about 10 in Photoshop.

WOW!! I just got my mailers back from Vista print. . .on time and they are perfect. The black is very black and the color matches my own print from my printer. Excellent!

Thanks Ginger and Kate for the great suggestions. . .they work!! It's so great to be a part of such a generous and knowledgeable group!